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Show M THEY ASK TOO MUCH. 9 : By DOROTHY DIX, The World's Highest Paid Woman Writer j 1 "Do you know why men are so 1 much happier than women?" asked th woman philosopher tho other day. fl i "Because the earth is man's and the 1 j. fullness thereof, while we women only get such crumbs of angel food as they drop from their tables," I replied en-, en-, viously. H "Not at all," sho responded. "It is because men are simple creatures who know -what they want and go out and H get it and are satisfied with it, wherc- as we women are poor, wabbling, flfty- BB flftiers who never achieve our desires rag because we always want contradictory Ma things. We want the sweet and the M I sour, the soft and the hard. We are ajjij s so determined to have our cake and 9 ' eat it too that we drop it and neither H , have it nor cat it. H ; "Did you over notice the difference H between a new rich man and his wife? The man is perfectly happy in gloating over his money bags. He can have just as good a time as he wants in i adding up his bank book. He doesn't desire anything more thrilling than to i clip coupons, and he's perfectly satis- fled to live where he's always lived, and be the big fat toad in his own little lit-tle local puddle. "But his wife, having gotten money, wants to be in fashionable society, and she pines to know the people who do not want to know her, and to act as if she'd always had dollars to throw at the birds instead of having had to squeeze every nickel until she made tho buffalo bellow. So-iShe yanks her husband up by the roots from his old home and old associates and the old friends who knew them know them no more. For they have gone to live In an environment where they will be strangers and aliens to the days of their death and miserable because the woman couldn't be satisfied, as the man could, with being merely rich. "And look at the sacred joy the self-made man gets out of boasting about how he was born in the gutter and how he worked his way through every difficulty and hardship to power and place. It's a great achievement and I don't blame him for glorifying in the ability, the grit and pluck that It shows. But did -you ever hear of a woman boasting that she was self-made? self-made? Never. "She may havo dug herself out of the ash can and by her own unaided efforts have made her place in the sun, but she takes no pride in her achievement. achieve-ment. On the contrary, the very first thing that she does after she arrives is to hire some expert to manufacture her an artistic ancestry that runs back to the Norman conquest. "Women are never happy because they are never satisfied to be what they are. They want to be that and something that is its direct antithesis at the same time. That's why when a woman gets her picture in the paper as the First Lady Longshoreman or tho Boss Lady Motor Truck Driver sho is always depicted as wearing a decollete gown with a string of pearls and toying with a Pomeranian pup. "Yes, wo women are flfty-fiftiers half one thing and half another and wanting It all. We try to play both ends of the game and that's why we so seldom win out Take business, for Instance. We are all crazy to go into business and make money and get the 3ame pay for our work that men get i for theirs, but we are not willing to work like men. "We want to hold on to our Jobs with one hand and pink teas with the other. We don't want to let our business busi-ness interfere with our pleasure, nor our privilege of giving way to our feminine fem-inine ailments and going to bed for a pin scratch. Why, we don't even want to be called call-ed 'working women.' If we are servants ser-vants wo must bo called 'helpers.' If we are cooks we must be referred to I as 'housekeepers.' If we sell goods we must be known as saleladles, tho'ugh I nobody ever calls a man salesman a 'salesgentle'man. And look how we dress for our labors! I went up in an elevator ele-vator in an office building the other day that was run by a ftiir young creature with her hair waved and coif-fed coif-fed as if for a ball, and who had on a flesh colored Georgette blouse and three story heeled white kid shoes that never cost a penny under $14 ' It made me smile and feel like crying. The poor littlo fifty-flftior, was determined de-termined she'd look like a society bud even while she was doing hard manual labor". "And wo women want to be competitors compe-titors of men, fight with them on their I own ground for the fat bones in the commercial world, and then have them i treat us as If we were visiting angels. , j Every now and then I hear some work-' work-' ing girl complain that her employer ! is a brute who smokes while he is j dictating to her, or that he swears (when -she makes mistakes, or that her , fellow clerks keep their hats on when I she goes down with them in the ele-i ele-i vator. "She wants everything that is com- ing to her as a fine lady and as a competent little hustler In business. "She wants to transfer the gallantries, tho compliments, the handkerchief picking of tho parlor to the counting room, and when she can't she considers con-siders herself extremely illused. "The mo3t curious phase of our fif-tying, fif-tying, however, is shown in our social relations with men We want them to regard us as their equals, yet at the same time we want them to look up to us as goddesses on pedestals. We want to bo baby dolls and clinging vines. We want our husbands to give us all the support and coddling that was bestowed on the old woman and add to it the freedom of the new woman. wom-an. "We are strong for men ceasing to regard us as toys and playthings, to be petted and flattered and dressed up and humored, and are insistent upon our demand that wo shall be treated by them as rational human beings, their partners and fellow workers in the marriage relationship. Yet I wonder won-der how many women could endure that kind of sane and safe marriage? I wonder what sort of a cruel, heartless heart-less Hun the average woman would consider her husband if he treated her with the brutal frankness he treats another man, and If he did expect her to stand up under her share of the family fam-ily responsibilities, and if he didn't doll baby her up now and then and call her temper nerves, and bring her flowers and candy? "Girls talk a lot about the ideal marriage being one of reason based on two peoples' appreciation of each others oth-ers real worth and a desire for com-radship com-radship In working out one's life destiny, des-tiny, but I fancy there would be mighty few marriages if courtship were carried on on that platform. "I met Mary Johnson the other day. I heard her discourse by the hour along that line. She told me sho was going to be married, but she looked dejected and disappointed, and after a bit she admitted that the reason was that when Jack proposed he simply put the matter up to her as a business proposition. Said he wouldn't tell her she was beautiful because she would know it wasn't true. Nor would he threaten to commit suicide if she refused re-fused him because he wouldn't dream of doing such a thing, but that he admired ad-mired her and respected her and that he thought if they pooled their finances fi-nances and brains they could make a go of it. " 'Of course,' said Mary, 'that's the sensible modern way to look at marriage, mar-riage, but oh, I did want the lovey dovey stuff, tool' "And we are all like Mary. We women wom-en are none of us happy because we are flfty-fiftiers. We want everything in the world, both ways. And we can't have it." |